Various industries are striving to find solutions to reduce power bills despite increasing electricity rates. Demand Response (DR) is one such method. DR works to reduce the amount of power consumed during a peak load period. DR systems help utility companies avoid blackouts, defer construction of new generation/transmission facilities, and reduce costs. For consumers, DR systems help reduce electricity bills by reducing the amount of power consumed during the more costly peak load periods.
In many cases, office buildings are considered as a single consumer from the perspective of the utility company. The building owners typically provide a comprehensive electricity service to their tenants who pay a fixed fee for the administration and power service. The electricity programs for office buildings may often include both power consumption charges (e.g., the power rate (cost per kilowatt hour)*power consumption) and demand charges (e.g., based on the peak load (in unit of kW) within a billing period). Thus, the more power that is used during the peak hours, the higher the electricity bill is for the building.